In cinemas January 23rd!
In this film we see Johnny Depp as the charismatic, and part-time shady art dealer, aristocrat Charlie Mortdecai. Mortdecai, suffering from financial difficulties, embarks on a mission to find a stolen Goya painting that is rumored to have the code to a bank account filled with Nazi gold inscribed on the back. The following search feels a bit like a game of cat and mouse, punctuated by endless moustache jokes, except the cat doesn’t have any claws and exhaustingly needs rescuing almost constantly.
While the characterisation from Johnny Depp as Mortdecai was fantastic, the character himself wasn't funny enough to make you invest in him as he is a bit unlikable. If it weren’t for the characters that oppose him being even more unlikable then you honestly wouldn’t care at all. Never the less the story is easy to follow and does offer entertainment, albeit slightly childish and obvious. Ewan McGregor was good as always as the smarmy and love smitten MI5 officer Alistair Maitland, but it's not his best role. We don’t see anything new from Gwyneth Paltrow, but she is perfectly cast as Lady Mortdecai who seems to be the only person of any intelligence in the film, which makes you wonder why she remains with the likes of Charlie...
Paul Bettany as Jock the thuggish manservant was the stand out performance, not to mention the source of pretty much all of the comedy! He delivers the role with strength and great comic timing. He is genuinely the best element of the film. All of the characters other than these few, although well played, were either very one dimensional or felt as though they merely existed as a device to move the plot forward. Costuming and locations were very impressive as they really immersed you in the atmosphere of the film and the storyline, but overall I think it just missed the bar it was shooting for. A good film, but not great.
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